Saint Peter’s Church in Zurich with the largest Clock-Faces in Europe

In the immediate vicinity of the Lindenhof, a small hill in the city of Zurich, where once the Roman settlement of Turicum and the imperial Palatinate lay, is the Church of St. Peter. The church is one of the three old town churches that characterize the silhouette of the city of Zurich.

Like the small tourist group from Cyprus, visitors to the city make daily pilgrimage to St. Peter’s Church in the heart of Zurich. The church has a special feature. One of these tourists wanted to know from me whether the four dials of the tower clock were really bigger than those of the “Big Ben” in London. My reaction to this question was spontaneous, yes, of course, the clock faces of the bell tower of St. Peter’s Church have a diameter of over eight meters, making them the largest in Europe. My answer was acknowledged with a smile and doubtful looks. As a consequence of the tourists reaction, I was questioning my response and started to get smart on the internet. My research has confirmed my spontaneous reaction. The four clock faces of the “Big Ben” tower in London (renamed to “Elizabeth Tower” in September 2012) have each a diameter of seven meters and are thus more than one meter smaller 🙂 compared to the dials of St. Peter‘s Church in Zurich! The result of my research calmed me, the „Tourist Information“ was correct 🙂

Another interesting church in Zurich is the Fraumünster with the world famous stained glass windows by Marc Chagall! In another post I will write in my blog about the extraordinary Chagall windows.